SuperStar season 5

The fifth (and last) season of SuperStar was launched on Future TV on 24 February 2008. This year, many changes occurred, such as the fact that the Results shows would happen on Thursdays instead of Mondays, so it will allow the audience to have five days to vote for their favorite contestants. Egyptian singer and SuperStar alumni Wael Mansour would host the show with Miss Lebanon 2004 Majdala Khatar, replacing Egyptian anchorman Ayman Qaissouni. Also, the introduction of a new female judge, Jihane, who joined Elias Rahbani, Ziad Boutros and Abdallah El Qaoud. This year, 12 contestants (7 males and 5 females) would get into the final stage. On 24 July 2008, Lebanese contestant Elie Bitar won the contest against Saudi contestant Abdelmajeed Ibrahim.

Even though running for five seasons, SuperStar was eclipsed by rival show Star Academy on LBC in the Middle East, in terms of popularity and ratings, after only its first season. It has been surpassed by Star Academy as the number one Arab show, and did not move the Arab world the way it did during the first season.

Future TV subsequently lost the Idol licence to the MBC network, which in 2011 relaunched the programme as Arab Idol on MBC 1.

Auditions
Auditions took place in the following cities :


 * Beqaa Valley, Lebanon
 * Tripoli, Lebanon
 * Cairo, Egypt
 * Amman, Jordan
 * Tunis, Tunisia
 * Baghdad, Iraq
 * Kuwait City, Kuwait
 * Manama, Bahrain
 * Casablanca, Morocco

Top 20
This year's Top 20 featured 9 females and 11 males

The Top 9 females performed on 6 April and Top 11 males performed on 13 April

10 were chosen, and 9 of the remaining 10 came back for a Last Chance show on 20 April

One of the girls chose to drop out of the competition but did not state a reason

Future Television was forced into closing on 9 May, during the 2008 Lebanon conflict. After moving its broadcasting headquarters, the station was back on the air on 13 May at 4:30 p.m (Lebanese Local Time)

Top 12
The Top 12 was completed on 24 April 2008. It features 5 girls and 7 boys.


 * On 3 July Diana Sharaneq was originally eliminated but brought back by the judges and again eliminated the next week.

Repertoire
Week 1 (1 May 2008)

Week 2 (8 May 2008)

Week 3 (28 May 2008)

Week 4 (5 June 2008)

Week 5 (12 June 2008)

Week 6 (19 June 2008)

Week 7 (26 June 2008)

Week 8 (3 July 2008)

Week 9 (10 July 2008)

Week 10 (17 July 2008)

Finale (24 July 2008)